Monday, January 16, 2017

Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooter Converted to Islam Before He Joined Army: Why wasn’t he stopped?

It has now been definitively established
that Esteban Santiago, who opened fire in the baggage claim area of the
Fort Lauderdale Airport on January 6, murdering five people, was a
convert to Islam who took the name
Aashiq Hammad, downloaded jihadist material and recorded himself
singing the Islamic confession of faith. The universal mainstream media
indifference to these facts is yet another indication of how the
prevailing denial and willful ignorance about the jihad threat is
hamstringing our opposition to it.
The new revelations came after it was discovered
that Santiago/Hammad had told the FBI, in a bizarre incident, that he
was being forced to fight for the Islamic State (ISIS). He was also
photographed making the one-finger sign that signifies one’s adherence
to Islamic monotheism, and which has come to be associated with
allegiance to ISIS.
Santiago’s aunt, Maria Ruiz Rivera,
claimed that it was all about his mental problems: after he served in
the U.S. army in Iraq, she said,
“He lost his mind.” But this only raises a larger question: why was he
able to join the army in the first place, since Santiago’s enlistment
came after his Muslim alter ego, Aashiq Hammad, had downloaded jihad
propaganda?
The obvious answer is that to bar him from the
army on those grounds would have been “Islamophobic.” Recall that the
Fort Hood jihad mass murderer, army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, had been in
repeated contact with jihad mastermind Anwar al-Awlaki. But when the
FBI agent who was monitoring Hasan’s communications reported these
contacts to his superiors, they told him again and again that they had
no interest. After the agent persisted, he was told that the bureau “doesn’t go out and interview every Muslim guy who visits extremist websites.”
Why not?
Hasan, in any case, remained on active duty until, screaming “Allahu
akbar,” he massacred 13 people at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009.
Esteban Santiago was likewise not stopped. Nor was he by any means
singular in this. After an Islamic jihadist set off bombs in New York
City and New Jersey in September 2016, the New York Post reported:
“It happened again: The FBI had the future Chelsea bomber on its radar —
for a while, anyway — but let him slip through. Just as officials had
done with men who became the perps in at least eight other terror
attacks.”
Terror researcher Patrick Poole, who for years has
tracked what he has dubbed the “known wolf” phenomenon – that is, jihad
attacks perpetrated by people who were known to authorities who had
turned a blind eye to the threat they posed – details one incident that is as disquieting as it is emblematic:

When the problem of terror recruitment amongst the U.S. Somali community
by al-Shabaab became an issue in 2008 and 2009, there were reports in
my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, which has the second largest Somali
population in the country, that al-Shabaab operative Dahir Gurey was
fundraising and recruiting for the terrorist group in the area. He later
showed up in Minneapolis.

When we
told the FBI about it, the response was that our information couldn’t be
accurate, because if it were true they would have heard about it from
their local Muslim outreach partners.

This indicates a level
of credulity on the part of law enforcement authorities that is truly
breathtaking. Many who are aware of the nature and magnitude of the
jihad threat blandly assume that officials parrot the party line about
Islam being a religion of peace and “extremism” being a problem among
people of all faiths in public, but in private are aware of the jihad
threat and working to counter it. Poole’s account, however – and there
are many other similar accounts – shows that they really believe the
nonsense they purvey in public.
The establishment media, meanwhile, is no better. Three days after the Aashiq Hammad story broke, ABC News reported, in the 26th paragraph of a story
about the Fort Lauderdale shooting, that “since the attack,
investigators recovered his computer from a pawn shop, and the FBI is
examining it to determine whether the alleged shooter created a jihadist
identity for himself using the name Aashiq Hammad, according to
officials familiar with the case.” That’s it, as far as the mainstream
media is concerned.
Imagine, in order to put this into
perspective, imagine if Santiago had put up a webpage some years ago
indicating that he had joined the KKK, and had downloaded white
supremacist literature. Do you think the establishment media would be so
indifferent to this as a possible indication of a motive for the Fort
Lauderdale Airport shootings? Neither do I.
Esteban
Santiago/Aashiq Hammad could have been stopped before he killed anyone.
But that would have required an entirely different culture within law
enforcement and the media. If such a sea change is not forthcoming,
there will be many more Aashiq Hammads. http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/265467/fort-lauderdale-airport-shooter-converted-islam-he-robert-spencer